


amitsi ola dia malita sola

by nehamerchant123



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: 5+1 Things, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Friendship, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 22:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15374280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nehamerchant123/pseuds/nehamerchant123
Summary: Five times where Takeru talks to Aoi and one time where Blue Angel talks to Soulburner.





	amitsi ola dia malita sola

**Author's Note:**

  * For [minimeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minimeow/gifts).



 ~  1 ~

 

" Ouch," she mumbles while rubbing her sore head.

Aoi somehow ended up running right into another student in the hallway and fell over, hitting the back of her head. The injury wouldn't likely be too bad, maybe just a bit sore for a while, but her head was spinning at that moment and it was hard to really think about this properly.

" Hey , are you okay ?"

Aoi looks up to see a boy wearing the most awful green glasses and holding out his hand to help her up. She ignores his hand and pushes herself up, looking around to grab the books she dropped.

"Um, I think these are yours?"

She turns back to the boy and finds him holding her books in his arms. She nods in thanks, grabbing the books from him and shoving them into her bag. She was supposed to get out of school as early as possible, her brother wanted to talk to her and Ghost Girl about something today.

She bows to the boy in front of her, mutters out a quick apology for bumping into him, and then she's running out the door as quickly as she can move. She hears him try to say something to her, but she doesn't have the time to turn around and figure out what he's going on about.

 

 ~  2 ~

 

"Hey."

This time Aoi is sitting at a table in front of the hotdog truck where she once met Yusaku Fujiki. She looks up to find the boy with the green glasses and in his hands her order. She's in a bad mood though after having lost to that Soulburner and she prays he'll just make it quick. But he looks like the annoying chatty type and she figures she might have no choice other than to put up with him.

"Here's your hotdog and coffee with extra cream," he sets down the mentioned items while speaking to her, and then he pulls out her day planner from the bag he is carrying with him. She's left just staring at him, the question of how and why he has it on her tongue, when he speaks again.

"I think this might be yours. You left too fast earlier for me to give it to you and it's actually pretty lucky you showed up here because I didn't know which class you were in so giving it back would have been a little hard."

She takes the book from him carefully, checking it's condition.

"Thank you," she says after a moment.

"You're welcome," he smiles brightly at her, pulling up an extra chair and sitting with her. "I'm Homura Takeru, it's nice to meet you."

She resists to urge to toss her coffee at him and answers in a slightly strained voice, "Zaizen Aoi."

She turns back to her tablet, hoping that he'll get the hint. She came here because she needed to get out of her house, not because she actually had any plans to interact with people. Several minutes pass by them, she keeps reading through her class notes and he just sits at the table, a pleasant smile on his face as if sitting there with her was somehow making his life more worth living.

And then, Takeru finally attempts to speak, "So..."

He just trails off, with no implied intention to actually continue and Aoi decides that she doesn't care to entertain this boy any longer.

"What do you want with me?"

"Wha-"

"If you're after my brother and his connection then I'm sorry to disappoint, but I have no plans to hang around your type. You won't get any help from me so would you mind leaving me alone?"

He blinks rapidly while trying to process her words and she thinks that this should be enough. She returns her gaze to her tablet but he doesn't seem to leave and now she feels herself gritting her teeth in frustration as more time passes.

"Hang on," he says. Aoi takes a bite out of her hot-dog to keep from screaming.

"Who is your brother and why would I want something from him?" Aoi nearly chokes in her shock and Takeru seems to panic a bit, he tries to call someone over with flailing arms before Aoi calms down and stops him. He waits a bit before restating his question and gesturing for her to give an answer.

"My brother is Zaizen Akira, Security Manger of SOL Technologies."

"Oh," Takeru nods, and then he pauses. "Oh! That SOL Tech!"

"There isn't any other SOL Tech"

"Oh, right..."

And silence falls over them again, Aoi continues eating her food and Takeru taps his fingers against the table in thought.

She finishes the hot-dog before asking, "So, if you didn't even know about my brother, why did you want to talk to me?"

"Oh yeah, well. So um, your book, planner, thing fell open in the hallway when you dropped it and I was just a bit curious I guess. Are you a Blue Angel fan too?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, I saw all the doodles in the back of the book and they looked a lot like variations on Blue Angel's costume so I thought maybe you were a fan of her."

Aoi tries to keep the amusement out of her voice as she answers, "Well, I'm not sure I would call myself a fan exactly. But I guess she's pretty cool sometimes."

Takeru's eyes light up at that and it's like something inside him changes a little bit.

"She's so cool! She saved all of Link VRAINS with Playmaker and Go Onizuka! It was awesome and her battle against Spectre was so intense, it's sad that she lost in the end but it's so brave that she even went in and tried. And her cards, oh man, they are just the best! No wonder she's nearly unbeaten, her strategy is brilliantly fool proof and she knows just where to hit her opponents!"

Aoi could let the gushing continue, honestly her ego is rather appreciative of all that Takeru has to say, but she still needs to end this conversation so she can leave without being too rude.

"So, you really like Blue Angel I guess."

"Oh yeah, she's one of my heroes!"

Aoi's not sure what shocks her more, the fact the he views her as heroic or the sheer admiration in his voice as he said those words. She decides that it probably can't hurt to let Takeru talk about his love for Blue Angel a little longer. She wonders how he would react to knowing that he was talking to his great hero right now.

 

~  3 ~

 

"Zaizen-chan!"

She turns around to see Takeru waving at her and she stops, waiting for him to pack his things and approach her.

"Your duel against Shima-san was pretty awesome!" he exclaims. "That spell card you pulled out on the last turn was such a twist too, I didn't know you could do something like that!"

He continues gushing, and while she's flattered by the praise, Aoi wishes she could just leave already. It's awkward enough seeing Yusaku show up at the duel club after trying to convince him to join the duel club full time and being turned down. But Takeru acting like they're all friends too is putting all her nerves on edge and it's a feeling that she could live without.

"Thank you very much, Homura-san." she bows lightly, hoping it seems like a polite enough way to make an exit. "I'm very sorry, but my brother is waiting for me at home so I really should leave soon."

"Oh, right. Of course."

She's about to sigh in relief when he then adds, "I'll walk you home!"

She blinks at him and then squints a bit. Behind him Yusaku lets out a snort and tries to pass it off as a cough when Naoki asks him what's wrong. She's too thrown off by the question to think of a polite way to turn him down and so she's left with no choice but to agree.

The walk is mostly silent, but in a peaceful way, and Aoi is certainly grateful for this.

And then Takeru opens his mouth and shatters it all.

"You really are a very good duelist," he almost mumbles the words, and at first Aoi isn't sure she really heard him say that until he continues. "It must have taken a lot of time to get to where you are. You could do a lot more you know, I bet if you became a charisma duelist you'd be one of the top."

"Thank you, you're very kind."

He looks at her then, at her impassive expression and her eyes that refuse to look up from the ground, and it's like he sees right through her.

"You don't really don't believe in yourself much, do you? You're stronger than you realize, have some faith. Your actions have the power to inspire others."

Aoi smiles a little. This boy so oddly sincere, so prone to honesty, despite also being rather quiet. Her chest clenches at the idea that someone could so easily break him and she prays that no one ever does.

"I don't think I'm really meant for the kind of grand actions that could move the hearts of people," she finally replies.

Things are quite between them for a while longer and they continue walking along towards her house. Takeru occasionally poses a question, usually about dueling techniques, but no real conversation holds up and she reaches home soon enough.

She thanks him and is heading for the door, when he suddenly grabs her wrist. His eyes are shadowed and he's not really looking at her, but she figures her brother wouldn't mind waiting another minute while Takeru gathers his words.

"Would..." he trails off before completing the sentence and now Aoi is curious enough that she turns around fully to look at him. He fiddles with his sleeve and she's reminded of the day he first approached her in that coffee shop.

"Would you..." He takes a breath to steady himself, "Would you mind teaching me to duel? The way that you do?"

She's not sure if she's hearing this correctly, it hardly makes sense to her. She blinks a bit, trying to see if this is some odd dream, but sure enough Takeru is still there when she looks back.

"Doesn't Fujiki duel rather well himself?" she doesn't mean to be rude by the question, not really. She's a bit perturbed by the abruptness of the request, but she can't say she would mind teaching him how to duel. Everyone knows he needs the help, he has managed to lose to the weakest duelists in the club today, and done so in less than four turns because of his constant fumbling.

"Well," he runs a hand through his hair and his expression changes from closed off to simply bashful, maybe even a bit apologetic. "I tried asking him to teach me actually, but you've met the guy. He's not really the type to teach anyone. He hardly has the patience and he has no skill at explaining things either."

She tries to picture Fujiki Yusaku, with his general disinterest in almost everything, actually trying to teach someone anything at all. It really is a hard image to conjure up.

She's silent for a while longer, just tossing the ideas around in her mind, but it seems Takeru takes this as her answer and backs away from her.

"I don't really mean to bother you about this, I'm sorry. It was a silly question, you've probably got a lot of other things to do. Sorry again for taking so much time. I guess I'll see you at the club soon."

He waved at her with a slightly strained smile and he's turning around to walk away when she makes her decision.

"We can meet weekly. Does Thursday after the club work for you?"

His eyes are blown wide and his mouth hangs open when he finally processes what she just said.

"You really don't mind?"

"Well I won't be doing this for free. You'll have to do something for me as well."

"Oh?" he blinks, but slowly a smile spreads across his face. "Anything you want, just name it!"

"Are you any good at English and Math? My marks in those are a bit lower all my other subjects so every week after I teach you about dueling you'll help me with some homework."

"I can help with the English, sure. But I'm actually not very good at math myself. Can I bring Yusaku along? He's really good that stuff."

"Sure, we can meet in front of the hot-dog truck then. I'll see you on Thursday, Homura-san."

She bows her head as a farewell, but once again he manages to stop her.

"You can call me Takeru. I don't mind."

She nods, "Takeru-san then."

She sees his face light up from the corner of her eye as she finally begins to enter her house. She's not really sure that agreeing to this was her best idea, she does still have her activities as Blue Angel and Blue Girl on top of all this and her schedule should preferably be as flexible as possible. But for the first time in her life she wants to really get to know some of her classmates, if that means Blue Angel can't accept duels on Thursdays then it's fine with her.

 

 ~ 4 ~

 

"Wait, what does this question want us to do?" Takeru squints at the  textbook, as if that will finally make the answer clear to him. 

He looks far worse than she's seen him in the months that they've been hanging out and to say she's concerned is an understatement. The bags under his eyes have been slowly developing for a few weeks now but today they make him look like a racoon and he can hardly stay awake while they try to study for the next day's math test.

"I think it wants us to divide by this number," she takes a pen and underlines the part of the question she's referring to and he just nods slowly, looking more like he wants to sleep than study. She's not even sure why they're trying to do this, it's the 3rd week that Yusaku has been absent and neither Aoi nor Takeru are any good at math without him there to explain things.

If she's being honest, she's just too distracted to study. Her brother and Ghost Girl have been working non-stop to find Playmaker but all their leads keep coming up short. Playmaker won't show up anywhere in Link VRAINS anymore and the only clue they had was Naoki saying that Playmaker likely went to their school. Aoi has spent the last 2 months trying to go around the school and doing whatever she can to find the person who might be Playmaker but to no avail. She's spent countless hours finding excuses to talk to people in hopes of finding someone with a similar speech pattern.

Sometimes she thinks that the things Takeru says sort of sound like Playmaker, with all those speeches on justice and heroes, but he moved to town long after Playmaker made his appearance and doesn't even know how to duel properly. In terms of dueling skills Yusaku might be closer to Playmaker's level, if he could get a better deck.

That line of thought finally wakes her up a bit and she decides to try asking, "Any word on Fujiki-kun?"

Takeru turns his head, the light reflecting off his glasses making it hard to see his eyes as he answers, "Nothing just yet, but I'm sure he'll be back soon enough."

The smile he sends her way brings no comfort and barely even reaches his eyes. She feels bad for him, having his best friend, maybe more than a friend even, just disappear and drop all contact must be hard on him.

No one at school seems to know what happened to Yusaku, one day he just stopped coming to class and when Aoi asked Takeru he said had no idea where Yusaku could have gone. For the first week the teachers and classmates were worried and all of them would constantly ask Takeru for any information at all. By the second week though only Naoki seemed to care that Yusaku still wasn't back in class, though the boy showed this worry by tailing Takeru everywhere and trying to haggle him for any information at all.

Aoi has entertained the possibility that maybe Playmaker and Yusaku's disappearances are linked, maybe they really are the same person. But Yusaku seemingly always had an alibi for whenever Playmaker showed up in Link VRAINS, Naoki and Takeru could both back this up too. Aoi is secretly glad for this, she would hate for a friend to be involved in all this.

Takeru knocks over his textbook and the loud crash brings some sense back to Aoi. She shakes her head to gain some more clarity while he just flops down on the table. Some of the other people in the café turn to look in their direction and Aoi mouths some apologies before trying to shake Takeru up.

"Maybe we should just pack it in for the day?" she suggests, hoping that he would go home and get some much needed rest.

"No," he shakes his head frantically and retrieves the fallen book. "I'll probably fail the entire course if I can't pass the test tomorrow, you gotta help me please Aoi-chan!"

He looks at her with his eyes wide and panicked, and even though she wants nothing more than to go home she agrees to continue studying. They try for another 2 hours before he falls asleep on his notes and she spills coffee over her tablet and they end up causing a scene before finally being kicked out of the café.

They both end up failing that math test, Takeru passes out in the middle of it and the school has to call an ambulance. Aoi just skips the class entirely to jump into the VRAINS after catching word that Daddy Long Legs is meeting up with Ghost Girl to exchange some information.

 

 ~ 5 ~

 

The Knights of Hanoi are back . Things in Link VRAINS are going wild and, as Blue Angel, Aoi feels it's her job to help calm the masses. So here she is, sneaking out of class and climbing to the school rooftop in hopes that she can login without being caught. 

She doesn't expect to open the door and hear someone shout "It's hero time!" into the empty air. She knows that voice by now , has heard it multiple times in the past few months and she is visibly shocked to see him toss his arm, with  that duel disk, into the air. She can't help the utter confusion she feels, she ends up swearing out loud. He seems to hear her and turns around, falling over in the process.

He sees her face and freezes, not even trying to cover up the duel disk or the worried A.I. He knows he's been caught and there's no way either of them could deny the truth in front of them.

Homeru Takeru, the shy and polite upper year student whom she has become tentative friends with, is the infamous Soulburner that her brother's company is hunting down.

"I'm so sorry."

The words sound so sad coming from him, his voice is choking up. And it doesn't make sense, why would he be...

Her mind shuts down right then. She cannot deal, she refuses to accept this. This boy is the closest thing she's had to a real friend in her life, she doesn't want to believe that he's just been using her. But the proof is there, that duel disk on his arm is all she needs to know and his apology doesn't make things better

So Aoi runs. She almost wants to cry when she realizes he isn't even trying to stop her but she pushes on. She goes back to class and claims to be feeling sick so she can leave school early all together. She runs all the way home and bursts through her bedroom, dropping her bag on the floor before digging out her duel disk.

Aoi isn't strong enough to deal with this, but Blue Angel has always been the best parts of her, and she can face the demons that Aoi is too afraid to fight.

 

~~ +1 ~~

 

It doesn't take her long to track down Soulburner. He's just taken down one of the Hanoi Generals it seems and he's surfs through the data with enough brightness to rival the sun. He's at home when he rides the wind like that, so very different from the shy boy that she thought was her friend. In a way she realizes he's not too different from herself and she's not sure if she really wants to do this anymore.

Then she notices that Playmaker is nowhere to be found (Fujiki Yusaku, she realizes and that explains everything), and she knows that if she wants to confront Tak- Soulburner about all this then this will be her only chance.

It doesn't take long for him to escape the ruckus and she follows him into an empty corner of the Link VRAINS. She finds it odd that he chose for them to do this atop some awkward replica of the Tower of Hanoi, but then again it's not like he was there that day to watch the people disappear. Homura Takeru has no reason to feel the same panic she does, no reason for his throat to close up at the memories of things long past.

She needs to stop thinking of these things, needs to leave and never see this sight again. But she needs answers more.

"Yusaku is Playmaker then," it's not a question and they both know there's no way for him to deny it either. He nods but still refuses to speak or look her in the eyes, choosing to stare out into the horizon instead.

"Where is he then? Everyone must be eager for the great hero of Link VRAINS to show up, so why isn't he already here?"

"I don't know," he whispers the words out and Blue Angel feels her frustration rising by the minute.

This isn't Soulburner. She's run into the cocky, self-assured duelist on many occasions since their first duel but it's like she's not even talking to the same person. She's talking to the boy she knows. He's standing in front of her as Homura Takeru, not as Soulburner and she is infuriated by this.

"How can you not know? I thought you were both close. Unless you were using him to get information as well."

The words are spit out with so much anger that he physically recoils. He keeps his head faced away from her and she sees his lips move, but she can't hear what he's trying to say. She doesn't have the time for this kind of foolishness and she tells him as much, but he seems to want to keep quiet even more than ever.

"If you don't want to talk to me then that's fine." She sighs and continues on, "My brother happens to work for SOL Tech you know, I could simply call them here and let them take your A.I."

"...he's gone," he finally admits. "He lost a duel against them and he lost his consciousness that day as well."

Her anger fades and she's left shocked and confused instead. She asks him to explain more and he does. He tells her about Bowman stealing Jin's consciousness earlier and how Yusaku and Shoichi have been working so hard to get it back until that duel went wrong. He tells her about how he's been taking Playmaker's place for nearly a month now and that they have no leads. Flame fills in small details about how the cyberse world had been destroyed and that Windy betrayed them in the end.

She's silent for a few moments, just taking in the story. There's an explosion somewhere in the distance and Takeru finally gets up off the floor when he hears it. She watched him breath in as deeply as possible, listens to his A.I. Friend give him some strange pep-talk, and she sees Soulburner pull his mask on right in front of her eyes. He stares at her then, all molten gold and fire, shining in ways that will surely burn her retina.

"I'm going out there," he says. "Link VRAINS needs a hero and someone needs to play that role until Playmaker can come back himself. I don't care if you can't understand it, just try and stop me if you must. But I won't go easy on you and I refuse to lose, not with so much on the line."

He moves past her, heading to jump from the tower's edge, when she grabs his wrist instead. He turns to face her, expecting some sort of attack, but instead she opens his palm and gives him her hair pin. A key of sorts he figures, probably gives her access to the more restricted parts of the network.

She's biting her lip, her eyes alight with a look he really can't understand. After a moment she lets go and messes with her duel disk. He watches as her avatar slips into her Blue Girl outfit.

"Consider this repayment," she starts. "For logging me out after our first duel."

His eyes narrow and he opens his mouth, but she cuts him off by holding up a delicate hand.

"This doesn't mean that you're forgiven or that we're done discussing things. It's more like a truce, I guess. Just until Playmaker comes back."

He raises an eyebrow and considers her proposition, twirling the hair pin between his finger slowly.

"What do you get out of this?"

She shrugs slightly. "Back when we meet at the hotdog truck after our first duel you said something. You said Blue Angel was your hero. I think it's time I finally started acting like a real hero."

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about how messy and vague this came out Mac. I tried to write the Zootopia AU but that just wasn't working so this will have to do lol. I hope you find it somewhat entertaining. 
> 
> Also, don't try to look up the translation for the title, you won't find anything because it's not in any real language and it has no real meaning. It's from a song called Heavenly Blue, which was the OP of a series called Aldnoah.Zero.


End file.
